Anthropic said Claude Fable 5.2 can design and prototype electronic hardware from start to finish, a step beyond earlier work that focused on basic circuits on the Higgs field. The company said the system helped produce three working electronic devices with Diode Computers, including a speakerphone, a voice-assistant hub and a handheld virtual pet.
The speakerphone prompt called for a puck that plugs into a computer over USB-C, includes microphones and a speaker, supports Bluetooth and uses a PCB antenna. Anthropic said Claude wrote the specifications, drew visual schematics, chose component placement, routed copper connections, designed a 3D-printable enclosure, coded the firmware and prepared a parts list.
Anthropic and Diode Computers
Anthropic said it first began testing how well Claude could design basic electronic circuits a little over a year ago. It then worked again with Diode Computers and asked Claude Fable 5.2 to design the three devices, with human engineers assembling the prototypes and running the firmware under Claude's direction.
The company said Claude used geometric reasoning to lay out each circuit board, anticipated manufacturing constraints and revised its own work. It also said the system modeled its designs in CAD software and directed the build of prototypes that worked without fixes to their circuitry.
USB and Ethernet
For the voice-assistant hub, Claude started by routing the USB and Ethernet connections, then worked one pair of tracks at a time. Anthropic said that compared with earlier Claude models, the biggest change was how well Fable 5.2 handled complex geometric problems, producing more compact layouts and placing the most important connections first.
Earlier Claude models had struggled to lay out a circuit board reliably, fit components together and avoid placing support parts too far from the chips they served. They also sometimes oriented connectors incorrectly, while Fable 5.2 routed tracks tied to high-speed signals, high currents or noise-sensitive signals before less critical ones.
The prototypes are still early devices, and the speakerphone has worked for weeks of use. Anthropic said it does not yet know how the devices will hold up with continued use or whether they would pass commercial certifications, leaving the practical test of whether this workflow can move from prototype to product unanswered.
